


Building A Planet of The Apes

by OldBonePile



Category: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Movies)
Genre: American Sign Language, Gen, Long, No Smut, Years Later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-28
Updated: 2021-01-28
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29039328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldBonePile/pseuds/OldBonePile
Summary: Well over a decade after Caesar's Colony of Apes escapes the brutal conflict with Alpha-Omega, spheres of influence begin to overlap as new civilisations appear through what what was once the American South-West, and the colony comes to discover that their original monarch's philosophy of pacifism is not shared by all of apekind.





	Building A Planet of The Apes

**Author's Note:**

> As always, comments, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome and appreciated! I've done an embarrassing amount of research for this story, so I'll throw major findings as well as things I know to be inaccurate at the end of each chapter, just in case anyone's interested, but feel free to correct me if I get anything wrong!
> 
> I actually started writing this story while I was under the influence after a party so if the writing style suddenly shifts that's where I picked up after finding out I'd started this.
> 
> Hope you enjoy!

The gentle lapping of tides finally punctuates the softened falls of hooves that had occupied their ears for hours.  
Pushing through forestry, the greyish light of the early morning paints across the father’s face, leaving the back of his head in shadow, blocking the son’s view of the coast. The horse ducks its head to the breaking light, its steps slowing as the ground beneath its hoofed toes soften from composting leaves into white sand. Slowly being directed to the familiar scooped out log, and the nearby pile of trash. The father descends, and helps the son down, unhooking the equipment clamped upon the side of the saddle, and walking towards the trash heap, the son striding behind him. The son stops him, turning him around.  
“Why the trash, Father?”  
The father holds his middle and index fingers in a V-shape, holding them beside his right eye, and then tilting them down towards the pile. “Watch.” He rummages through, and pulls a translucent white jug, a small pink cap sealing the top. He walks over to the water, the son following closely with curiosity. Once he wades in knee deep, he drops the jug into the water. Crossing his fingers, he brings his hand to his chest, sweeping it across in a wave motion. “It floats.” The father unearths a dozen of these same jugs, before carrying them in his hands to the pile of rope pots. “The jugs mark where we have left the pots,” he tells his son. From each pot, there is a single length of long rope, he ties them to the handles of the jugs, one pot, one jug. He loads the pots onto the carved log. The father wanders back to the horse, pulling a woven sack from a saddle bag, “before we leave,” he says to the son, “breakfast.”  
Breakfast for the two consists of a mix of oats and seed, mainly pumpkin and sunflower, the two most common back in the village. The mixture had been heated a few hours ago in the village, wrapped to preserve its heat. Now, the mix is just warmer than the cool oceanic breeze. But it is enough for them. After the mix is finished, the two shared dessert: popcorn, prepared by the father’s wife. After dessert, the pair drag the log to the water. The son boards the canoe, before the father pushes it into deeper water, before climbing aboard himself, and pushing off with a paddle. 

The two of them paddle to the edge of the reef that shields the coastline, several dozen metres out. The father pulls the first pot onto his lap, before reaching into his black jacket, and pulling out a gutted rabbit, carving off its lower leg, “we put parts of the rabbit into the pot as bait,” he instructs his son, “except the liver.”  
“What happens to the liver?”  
The father reaches into a pocket in the inside of his jacket, “we share it” he says beforehand, then pulling out the precooked liver of the rabbit, biting off approximately half, before handing the remainder to his son. Once finished, he stuffs the leg into the pot, before slowly standing up, and throwing the pot into the water. As the floating rope is dragged deeper and deeper by the pot, the end tied to the jug remains at the surface, once the rope is taut, he points out to his son “I told you, it floats to mark where the pot is.” They paddle away from the pot, the father throwing out a second, then a third pot after paddling away after throwing. “Your turn,” he instructs his son. As he stands to throw the pot, the father rocks the boat. Forcing his son back down, not fully laughing, but huffing amusedly. The son stands up again, and the father rocks the boat once more. “No more, Father,” he requests, before standing and throwing the pot into the water. The pair take turns throwing the pots in for the next five pots. The two of them stop for a break. Sitting down in the boat, the father reaches into his jacket and pulls a set of tinted spectacles from another pocket, handing them to his son. “look into the water.” He instructs. Both end pieces of the sunglasses are broken off, thus the son must hold them up to his face. Once he does so, he sees the deeper waters teeming with fish of contrasting colours. The colours themselves are dimmed by the brown-tinted goggles, but the contrast was obvious. After a few moments, the son notices a greyish, torpedo shaped body powering through the water. He hands the glasses back to his father, “what is that one father?”. The father checks the water; the son sees his eyes widen, “let’s finish this,” the father instructs, “quickly.” They paddle around the coastline, throwing the last of the pots in. 

Back at the shore, the father builds a small fire, its heat warding off the incessant gnaw of the wind. “There are many dangers in the ocean, son,” he tells him, bringing his open hand to the top of his head, “sharks,” he spreads his fingers, curving them, before lifting his right hand above his left, and bringing them together like interlocking jaws, “alligators,” the son opens his mouth to ask, but his father gestures for him to be quiet. He points to what the son had initially thought was a resting log, which had now opened its wide, flat jaws to take a deep breath, dozens of pointed teeth jutting up and down from its mouth. “Never swim at night,” the father instructs, “and if you are swimming, make sure someone is there to watch.” The alligator pushes its long, armoured body off the ground, turning to look at the two. It turns its head to regard the pair with each eye separately. It reminds the son of a chicken looking at a new creature it has stumbled upon, deciding whether it is food. The reptile slowly walks towards the lapping water, leaving a long trail in the wet sand before propelling itself into the sea. “We should keep away from it.” The father brings his son’s attention back to him, “let’s paddle away, then we can go fishing.”

Fishing for the two is done with handlines, “don’t tangle that line,” the father lectures, “it took me days to untie all of the knots.” Hooking the last scraps of rabbit to their fishhooks and casting them into the water. The son receives the sunglasses again, “tell me when there is a larger fish,” he is instructed. Fish are pulled, one by one, into the boat, their skulls spilt with the father’s flint knife. Eventually, the sun calls to his father before handing the sunglasses back, “There! With the coloured fins!”   
The father pulls the long spear from the floor of the boat, with his right hand, holding the spectacles in his left. He readies the spear, tracing the movement of his quarry, before throwing the spear in the water. The son’s gaze shifts overboard, wondering what is supposed to happen until he notices the cord stretching from the spear in the body of the fish to the loops tied around the father’s wrist. The father slowly drags the fish in, almost four feet in length, with fins of bright yellow. “We will need to return to the beach to kill this one”, the father says, before leading the boat back with the tide to land.   
The yellowtail continues to thrash and struggle on the boat. It takes both to wrestle it onto the beach, there the father takes the spear into both his hands and drives its stone tip into the fish’s head. The two of them sit by the rapidly expiring fish for a few moments. “We do not know where the fish go when they die.” The father says, “but I hope it is somewhere peaceful.” Once the yellowtail’s gasping and struggling stops, the father wanders to the forest to gather more tinder and builds a second fire.

Fishing for the village is done on a larger scale in the lake. But the father, and now his son, also provide a small quantity on top of their regular harvest. Their work is among the longest of all the jobs, but they also keep a lot more of their spoils than other groups closer to home. Cooking up one of the smaller fish, the father makes small talk with his son.  
“Every time I come, there are more and more fish. I wonder if those before us had wiped them out, and only now, years later, have they returned.” The entire fish is cooked, before the father uses a far thinner blade, again produced from his pocket, and chipped from flint, to cut boneless strips from the fish. The two watch as the alligator they spotted before drags itself from the water, many metres away. The father takes the skull of the fish and throws it onto the tip of the reptile’s snout. It snatches the head up, and regards the two once more, before wandering towards the tree line and coming to rest once more. After their meal, the scraps are also offered to the beast, who partakes contentedly, and meanders into the forest. The father butchers a second fish, much less precisely than the first “for the birds,” he clarifies. The fish that remain intact are pressed into a sack together, the cut one into another. The yellowtail is buried in a shallow hole to protect its valuable carcass, before the two set out once more to collect the pots.

The son knew that his father’s role in the community was to collect crabs for eating, but he did not realise how many until they began to pull the pots in. Each one teeming with the irritable crustaceans. “It is too dangerous to try and kill them from the boat, or even the beach,” the father explains, “we do it in the village, just like I’ve showed you.” The son pulls the third pot in, as he does, he notices a grey, triangular fin protrude from the surface of the water. He starts to panic, pulling the pot in faster, only to gain the shark’s attention, as they pull the pot in, it continues towards the boat, butting its head against it as it slowly circles around. Looking through the lenses, the father can see that the predator is almost double the size of the boat including its tail; he takes the butt of his spear and jams it against the shark’s nose. Once, twice, and finally a third time, and the fish is deterred, diving to escape the wooden shaft that assails it. “This one must be new to the lagoon” the father says, “the other sharks don’t take interest after if you’ve hit them before.” The son nods in acknowledgement, before helping to paddle to the next carton, and pulling the crabs up. Once the two are done, they paddle back to shore, and drag the boat back to the garbage heap. The father unties the jugs and buries them in the pile. The son slowly clamps the pots, now swarming with struggling, slowly dying crabs, onto the saddle, constantly adjusting his grip to avoid being pinched. The father then leads the horse to the filled-in hole, where they dig up the yellowtail and tie its body to the other side of the horse. The two then mount up, shifting their legs to avoid the desperate crabs, and riding back Eastward into the forest.

“You did very well,” the father says behind his head, “I was bitten and pinched many times on my first trip, and you’ve gone the whole day without a scratch.” He grips his son’s knee, giving it an assuring squeeze, before bringing his hand back to the horse’s reins; and the two discuss fishing, crabbing, and cooking for several hours on horseback.  
About an hour away from home, the pair notice the familiar call of several crows announcing their presence. The father pulls about half of the butchered fish from the saddlebag and handfeeds the pieces to the birds. The group of seven crows perches along the horse’s spine, each accepting scratches on the chin from both father and son as the horse makes its way back to the village.

The pair, the horse, and the crows reach the village, to the surprise of them all, before the sun begins to set. Two burly guards stand between the horse and the gate; the father holds his two fists side by side, the right slightly in front of the left: the community’s salute and recognising sign. As the group rides in, the father flicks the reins, and the horse begins to canter towards the centre of the community, towards the creche where the other son likely is.  
The son surveys the group, and watches as the dozens of children all chase each other around the play equipment that he had once helped build. He notices his baby brother clambering around on some of the higher up ropes to avoid being caught by the other children, but upon seeing his father and brother, he lets out a squeal of delight, dropping from the ropes and tumbling across the sand. Running over to the horse and clambering aboard with his brother’s help. The other children, as well as the elderly bonobo supervising the creche, wave the trio goodbye as they move to drop their quarry off to the cooks.  
Cooking dinner for the community was an entirely separate job to collecting the meats and vegetables that would go in, and while the father regularly helped in preparing, given how early he had returned, this evening he declined to spend some extra time with his family. He and his son, however, did stay to help kill the remainder of the crabs, driving thick, flint blades through the heads of crabs to end them as quickly as they could, so that their food would not have to dwell on its own mortality, before returning to their hut.

As they head home, the crows disembark the horse, leaving to sell their attention to other villagers for more scraps. The father brings the horse to a stop outside a familiar wooden hut. While he hangs the now-empty crab pots on hooks on the outside of the hut, the two sons disembark and hurry through the goatskin curtain that covers the doorway to keep flies out. Inside is their mother, who has made her way to the door upon hearing the horse trotting around the outside of the hut. The youngest son clambers into his mother’s arms, his older brother, close behind, pull the mother’s forehead against his own, and the trio share this embrace for a moment. The father enters shortly after; he and the mother wrap around each other, while the two sons sit on the floor further inside. The older brother tries to ask his younger sibling about his day, but he is not paying any attention, simply rocking back and forth on his backside, looking about the room. The older brother grunts at the child, who finally looks over to him, flattens his hands out like two feet, and swings them back and forth in wide arcs, “Stride.”  
The older brother lifts his right hand in a fist and tilts it forward twice, like he’s knocking a door, “yes,” he says, “that’s me.”  
The child points to their father, before tapping the tip of his thumb against his forehead, with his other fingers up in the air “Father”  
“Yes! Father,” Stride says, puckering his lips happily in his baby brother’s direction.  
The child repeats the movement while pointing at his mother with his left hand “father?” He says with a curious face.  
Stride brings his middle and index fingers to his thumb, pressing them together like a closing mouth “no,” he copies the movement, but taps his chin instead of his forehead “mother.”  
“Mother?”  
“Yes!” Stride hoots happily before grabbing his brother and engaging in an energised bout of tickling, encouraged by the child’s breathy, hiss-like laughter. The pair pauses as they hear a loud bell tolling from far away, then another further away. Stride lifts his arm, his brother still wrapped around it, the two exchange an amused glance, before the kid climbs onto Stride’s shoulders, “come,” the father says to them both, “dinner.” The four of them head out as a family, picking up wooden dishes on the way out.

Near the playground where the younger brother was earlier lies an enormous sheet of hot coals where the skinned bodies of goats, fowl, fish, the now reddened crabs, and some variation of bovine, Stride isn’t sure if it’s a regular cow or a buffalo, nonetheless, he’s keen to have a piece. Waiting in line, he sees the other, equally keen villagers collecting meat with eager emphasis on asking the cooks to pass them strips of beef, who quickly take note of the demand and cut down on the beef servings. Stirring annoyed huffs from the front of the queue. The father is in front of Stride, and he watches as one of the cooks greets him, lifting his hands to his chest with splayed fingers, except his middle finger, which is down, before tilting them back down in closed fists. “Jacket!” He says happily, “what meat do you want?”  
Stride thinks about the interaction as it occurs, knowing that “jacket” is not his father’s name, but is quickly ushered forward to be served, piling on beef and crab, his two favourites, getting some extra meat for his brother, who is still wrapped around his shoulders. As he turns to leave, he feels his mother tapping his shoulder, he turns to watch her lecture him “plenty of green for both of you”  
Stride rolls his eyes and smirks at her “I know,” before slowly making his way to where there were vegetables being served, mostly beans, sweet potato, and cucumber, roasted, boiled, and raw, respectively; and walks over to sit on the ground with his father.  
Stride parks his rear across from his father, who is sitting with the head of the guards, who greets him quickly, “Stride,” nodding to him, and then to his younger brother, making an L-shape with his finger and thumb before closing his fist, thumb between his ring and pinky finger, “Lamont.” Lamont trills happily upon seeing his name and rolls off Stride’s shoulders, sitting in his father’s lap. Stride greets the guard back, holding his index finger up with his other fingers closed, and then moving his thumb between his ring finger and pinky, “Demarcus,” passing a glob of crab meat in Lamont’s mouth. “Father,” he begins when his father is looking, “why did the cook call you Jacket? Your name is Blackjacket,”  
Demarcus huffs amusedly at him, before turning to Blackjacket, “has he never noticed?”  
“Apparently not,” the father says, before waving off Demarcus’ mockery, “it’s faster to say Jacket.” He clarifies, “it is a surprise you never noticed.” Lamont holds out his open hand to Stride, asking for more food, and is handed a crab leg. As he goes to stick it in his mouth, their mother ambles over and brushes Lamont aside, making him scramble into Stride’s, as she lays across Blackjacket’s, sweeping a lock of his long, orange hair behind his ear. Both parents begin to coo at each other, making small talk at an angle Stride struggles to read, when Demarcus catches his eye, “are you attending the council meeting tomorrow?”  
“I have to,” Stride signs back, “Father makes me come to every meeting.” He notices Lamont has spat the leg into his lap, and is huffing angrily at Stride, who must point out that the meat is inside the leg, before poking it back between Lamont’s lips. Demarcus looks around his short legs and behind him, grabbing something behind him and lifting his squirming, laughing daughter up in front of him by her ankle, spelling out her name with his left hand, “Lucy!” He chuffs before laying her across his crossed legs, handing her morsels. Lamont spits out his crab leg again upon seeing her, and goes to run to her, before Stride grabs him and stuffs his hands with vegetables. “What’s the meeting about tomorrow?”  
“Changes to the way we spell,” Demarcus says slowly, preoccupied with feeding his daughter, “there are a lot of odd inconsistencies in the spelling of words written by those who came before us. So, we are going to discuss making it simpler.”  
“What’s your opinion on it?”  
“Not sure,” he pauses to think about the matter, “all I know is that if we decide not to change it now, we won’t ever change it.” He sits Lucy up straight in front of him, giving her a strip of sweet potato, “I do know that it will be a mess, like every meeting.”   
When the two small children have finished eating, they chase each other around, Demarcus gestures to the two, before huffing amusedly at Stride, “do you think they are in love?” He asks mockingly,  
“That would be a first, have two of different kinds ever...?”  
“Not that I know of,” Demarcus shrugs, “then again any who did would probably keep something like that secret.”  
“True.” Stride shrugs back at Demarcus, the six of them grow quiet over the next few minutes, watching the sun fade from orange, to pink, and then dipping below the horizon, staining the sky as it also darkens. A yellow-grey street dog silently weaves its way among the two families, politely taking scraps from the hands of Stride and Demarcus, and discretely cleaning the plates of Stride’s parents while they stay in their own little world. The dog looks expectantly at the remains of the last crab leg, which has found its way into Lamont’s grip; but before anyone can point out the hungry quadruped, it snatches the leg from his grasp, the shock of it causing Lamont to begin his squeal-like crying. Strides parents snap back into reality and scoop the shaking child out of Stride’s lap, Stride shakes his head and waves the confused dog away. The small child remains tightly wrapped around his mother as she finally takes notice of Demarcus and Lucy, acknowledging them both, “Ari,” he spells out on his right hand, “are you planning on heading home soon?” Demarcus wraps a now sleeping Lucy around his shoulders and ambles off on all fours. Noticing the empty dishes and the quick drainage of light from the sky, the family follows suit. As they return to the hut, Black-Jacket walks softly towards the now sleeping horse, removing the last of the butchered fish, and throwing them to the drowsy foul meandering to their roosts, who dart back for the fish, before continuing their winding and dragged-out routine for sleeping. The other three have already pushed passed the goat skin, stacked the dishes away in a corner, and are beginning to make for their various spaces to sleep. Lamont is still wrapped around his mother’s shoulders as Jacket walks in, but upon realising he won’t be the centre of her attention, peels himself off her and makes for the hammock Stride has already settled into, begging underneath it until a yielding arm stretches down to let him in. Stride runs his fingers through Lamont’s growing orange hair a few times, before he, and the three other orangutans he lives with, sink into a peaceful state of slumber.

**Author's Note:**

> One of the things I really wanted to have at least somewhat consistent was the geography of this story, so I've tried to make sure everything at least works in theory, keep in mind I've never visited, written about, or even read about the actual landmass that is the USA so I've learned everything I know since I started writing this.   
> I couldn't find anywhere that actually states where the Oasis at the end of War is, but the nearest desert is the Mojave desert which stretches through both California and Arizona, as well as a few other states that I didn't think were that relevant, but who knows what will happen? Anyway I decided to do distance calculation from the centre of the Mojave Desert National Preserve which is still in California, as it's about two weeks travel from the Muir Woods where the Ape Colony settles originally, which seems like a reasonable distance for them to have travelled. From there the closest strip of coastline if I'm not mistaken is roughly around Los Angeles, just by eyeballing it it was close to a spot called Long Beach, which is about six hours away at the rough speed at which a horse will run if it's doing long-distance travel. This is why BlackJacket and Stride don't spend a particularly long time there, and also why they leave so early and normally arrive quite late at night.
> 
> I will probably get more into ape food logistics at a later date but I would like to point out one issue I definitely know.  
> Lamont is still very young, probably to the point where he shouldn't be eating solid food. Some orangutans will continue to breastfeed until they are about nine years old, Lamont is between two and three. Though I thought it would be acceptable given that Cornelius is a similar age in War and seems to have survived a considerable amount of time without a mother or any apparent wet nurse, and has his own teeth, so I figured Lamont would also get along reasonably well without me writing in an ape breastfeeding scene.
> 
> If there's anything else you're wondering about, give me a yell! I've already started on chapter 2 so hopefully it shouldn't take too long for it to show up


End file.
